10 Tips to Score Big with the Family History Writing Challenge




 

  1. Create a daily target goal. It’s important to understand how much time you can dedicate to writing each day and how many words you can write in that timeframe. Do those targets coincide with your goal? You have to do the math and set realistic and expectations for yourself.

 

  1. Choose an Ancestor to write about. You can’t possibly write your entire family history in 28 days. However, you can choose one ancestor and one story that you can write about during these 28 days. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Start with one story, one ancestor.

 

  1. Take some time to get organized. Gather your research together and create a workflow. It’s important to get organized before you begin to write so that you actually spend your time writing and not looking for your research. You’ll be a much more productive writer and find the process that much more enjoyable.

 

  1. Complete an ancestor profile. Dig deep and learn as much as you can about your ancestor. The more you know, the more confident you will be about writing their story. A profile is a vital tool to fleshing out your ancestor and getting to know him or her in-depth. You’ll find an excellent ancestor profile in our workbook, The Authentic Ancestor.

 

  1. Create a timeline of your ancestor’s life. Timelines are fabulous tools to help you understand what you know, what you don’t and to help you find your story. Don’t miss this step.

 

  1. Identify your ancestor’s story? We don’t just want to tell a chronological tale of an ancestor’s life from beginning to end, that would be boring. Instead take the time to find your ancestor’s goals, motivations and the risks they took to meet their dreams.

 

  1. Understand scene and summary. Family history stories are written using the genre of narrative nonfiction. Narrative nonfiction uses scene and summary like building blocks to create a story. Make sure you understand this concept as it is at the core of writing your family history stories. It will also help you in creating your storyboard for your writing. Our workbook, Crafting a Scene is an excellent resource for learning scene and summary.

 

  1. Create a storyline. A storyline is like a timeline but different. It is the timeline for your story. Identify the key scenes that will carry the story and organize them into a storyline. A storyline will help you to create an entertaining and suspenseful tale that will pull your readers along. You can learn to create a storyline in our workbook, Finding the Story.

 

  1. Create a 4-week storyboard. A storyboard is your map for writing. Using index cards, you can outline your storyboard using scenes. Once you create your storyboard, it will serve as a great visual reminder of your writing plan, day by day. A storyboard will keep you focused and on track. Want to learn more about storyboards consult Crafting a Scene.

 

  1. Create a daily schedule and your writing place. Make sure you plan your writing and make it a priority, at least, for the next 28 days. Also, you need to identify a place for writing, a desk or table, you can claim as your writing space. These are essential steps to completing the Challenge with success and making it a priority for the next 28 days.

 

If you want to meet with success this year, you need to make writing your family history stories a priority, and you need to come with a plan. We cover all 10 of these steps in detail with worksheets in our Family History Writing Challenge Prep Course.

This year, score big in the Family History Writing Challenge. Be ready to write.

Related Post

The Three Spaces to Organizing Your Family History WritingThe Three Spaces to Organizing Your Family History Writing

Whether you’ve started writing your family history book or you’re still in the ‘thinking about it” stage, the process can be a tad overwhelming. As family history writers we have a lot to manage when it comes to writing a book. Let’s just consider the writing, for example, making sure we have all the necessary information going into our stories, like setting and characterization and a good plot and then handling the editing and revisions. Of course, we also have mountains of research that we will have to draw on throughout the writing process. We will need to make sure we are creating accurate citations and a bibliography of our references. Finally, we will want to add pictures to enhance our words, do we have a plan for managing them?

Without a well thought out and practical workflow, a family historian can waste a lot of time shuffling papers, and this can become frustrating and confusing and often result in an abandoned project.

I highly recommend you create yourself a writing workflow that consists of three organizational spaces; your writing space, a reference management area, and a research organizational space. Let’s look at how to set these up so that you can get to the finish a line a little bit quicker.

 

Gathering Your Research

It’s important to gather your research, primary documents, pictures and social history research in one place, where you can keep them organized and readily available. You need to choose that place and set up a filing system that works for you. A big part of the planning process is having a detailed knowledge of your research and having it organized and readily available to you.

Much like historical fiction writers, family history writers must give much thought to the history and timelines of the world around their characters. We must re-create that world for our readers, impossible to do without in-depth research. Having your family history spewed across various files, programs and computers can be a time waster in writing. You need to create a nice neat workflow, and your first stop is a home for your research. A few tools available include programs such as OneNote or Evernote. I prefer to create a project binder in Evernote.  I admire Evernote and its ability to sync across all my computers, so regardless of where I am working I have access to my research and love the organization of the program. It’s a personal thing. Give both a try, find your preference.

In Evernote, I create a binder for each surname I’m covering in my book. I create a notebook stack. In that stack, I create notebooks that can be dedicated to each ancestor. In each ancestor’s file, I store all the necessary documents, pictures, family group sheets and pedigree charts for each ancestor in this particular story. I also create files for setting and social history. Setting up these files is simple. The work comes in rounding up all your research. It can be a big chore but will make your task of writing your stories so much more enjoyable. The work of gathering your research is beneficial in of itself.  It allows you to become reacquainted with your research, helps you identify holes and ask questions.

As I begin to write in Scrivener , my chosen writing software, I can then quickly pull the research I need into Scrivener’s research area. It’s right in front of me while I write, ensuring accuracy and there is no time wasted shuffling papers and clicking through my digital files looking for my research.

 

Managing Your Citations and Bibliography

Creating a management system for citations and a bibliography is the second step in my writing workflow. Without a plan for citations and a bibliography before you begin to write you can end up with a massive task when you are done writing. It’s important to keep track of your references as you work through your story. It doesn’t mean you have to create citations as you write, you can handle these as two separate tasks so as not to disrupt your creative writing process. However, it doesn’t mean you ignore them and leave it all to the end.

As I place citations into my writing in Scrivener, I pull them from a number of sources, my reference manager, my family tree software, RootsMagic, or I create them manually if necessary, for instance with Evidence Explained by Elizabeth Shown Mills as your reference guide. You can learn how Scrivener handles citations and works with a reference manager in my new guide, Scrivener for the Family Historian.

You’ll also find yourself heading to the Internet or an Archive for additional information, usually social history, as well as world, regional and local history. A reference manager can easily capture this information with browser apps.

Citation managers are wonderful tools that allow you to organize your sources for creating citations. They make the task quick and easy, keeping you from spending too much time away from writing, looking up sources and formulating citations. They also make creating bibliographies a fast and painless task. Three citation managers I suggest you consider are Zotero, Papers, and Refme. Take them for a test drive; find one that works for you. Again take the time to load up your citation manager with your sources in advance of writing. As you begin to write your stories, you’ll have your sources readily available and can add to your list as required. When you reach the end of your project, your bibliography will be a breeze as most reference managers will automatically generate one for you.

 

Managing Your Writing

The final and third essential element to my writing workflow is my writing software. While most of you are probably using Word, I chose to move my writing to Scrivener about 5 years ago.

What makes Scrivener such an exceptional program is its’ ability to handle a large project. Rearranging your text, chapters, and sections and just having the capacity to get a big picture view of your book or story is worth the prices of the program. Only $40.  It also has the capability of being extremely flexible. Every writer is unique and wants something a little different in their writing space, Scrivener offers that flexibility. Finally, Scrivener can take your project from the earliest stages of planning with its digital corkboard right through to publishing, whether that be a paperback, hardcover or ebook.

Before you begin to write, establish a writing workflow, a process that you are going to put in place to manage your research, your references, and your writing.  Make writing your family history productive and organized but most of all let’s get to the finish line and get those family history stories published. A great workflow can help get you there.

 

 

 

The Tools of a Family History WriterThe Tools of a Family History Writer

One thing about writing, you don’t need a lot of tools to write, a pen and paper if you really think about it. However, we’ve come a long way from pen and paper, there are all kinds of tools to make writing a litter easier. Of course, I mean in terms of the act of writing, nothing I share below will do the job for you but they can organize you and make it easier to plot and rewrite and edit. Saving you time and frustration and those are all good things with today’s busy schedule.  There is no point going old school when you really don’t have to. Here’s my list. It is hand-picked for the family history writer.

Organizational Software

Before you begin writing I strongly suggest you put in to place a program or programs  to help you manage your research and create a workflow for yourself. My recommendations for assembling the necessary research for a particular story would be Onenote or Evernote. They are both exceptional tools.  Pull all your research together for a particular story in to a binder  in either tool. Makes for easy reference and keeps you from being distract by all your other research. Keeping your research organized keeps the brain focused.  Also choose a citation manager such as Zotero or Refworks .  Zotero is free, while Refworks has a price. It’s hard for me to suggest one, as they all work a little differently and it will depend on the scope of your project and your own personal preference. Choose one, and assemble your sources along the way. I cover creating a workflow in further detail Getting Ready to Write Guide. Thinking ahead and creating a workflow with organizational software goes a long away from you feeling like you’re drowning in a sea of research.

Writing Software

When it comes to writing your family history stories, Microsoft Word will be the go to for most of you, and Pages if you’re on a Mac. However, several years ago I started using Scrivener for writing all my articles, stories, and ebooks and I’ve never turned back.  I’m not going to spend a lot of time discussing it’s merits here. I’ve written many articles on the subject and created some videos on my You Tube Channel showing the family history writer how it can serve them in their writing endeavours. I will just add that it is the best $40 I have ever spent on a piece of software, not just writing software, any software.

Visual Aids

I love all visual aids, I use two mindmapping programs, imindmap, which is a little more formal lots of bells and whistles and as well as Scapple. Scapple is from Literature and Latte, same developers as Scrivener. I use it for those quick mindmaps of random I ideas I want to quickly see quickly. I also love a white board and cork boards for mapping out my stories and then there is also the Pinterest board for creating an Ancestor Collage. We discuss this in detail in Authentic Ancestors.

Grammar and Style Guides

I will be the first to admit that grammar is not my strong suit and feel like it might take my entire life to master. When I write I see the creative side of the craft and the rules of grammar get in the way. However, you can’t be a writer without developing your grammar skills or at the very least implementing a few tools to help you out.  There are three tools I will suggest.

 1.Grammarly

My first line of defence is Grammarly.  Grammarly is a software program you download to your computer, works much like spell check, but is much more sophisticated.  You can check out my review of Grammarly today on The Armchair Genealogist, and enter for a chance to win a one month subscription.

2. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition by Strunk and White
This old-school standard nevers goes out of style and has prominent place on my desk. Every writer should own a copy.

3. Dictionary.com App

The Dictionary.com App is an all in one tool for today’s writer. It offers a dictionary, thesaurus, word of the day, example sentences, pronounces the word for you, and so much more. Invest the $4.59 and get the upgraded version of the app.

Notebooks

You should have an abundance of notebooks both paper and digital to help capture your ideas. Don’t forget that all important writer’s notebook we discussed earlier.  Pretty or plain, your choice, just make sure you got notebooks in place to capture your ideas and to practice your writing.

Study of the Craft

 There are many books that can help you to understand the craft of writing. I read 3-4 books a year. In my opinion, here are some of the best books you should have in your writer’s toolbox.  Some apply to all writers, while a few are specific to creative nonfiction. In my opinion they all have something to offer the family history writer.

On Writing: 10th Anniversary Edition: A Memoir of the Craft by Stephen King

Writing Creative Nonfiction by Philip Gerard

You Can Write Your Family History by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack

You Can’t Make This Stuff Up: The Complete Guide to Writing Creative Nonfiction–from Memoir to Literary Journalism and Everything in Between by Lee Gutkind

On Writing Well, 30th Anniversary Edition: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction by William Zinsser

 

Writing Groups and Classes

 Seek out writing groups online or in your community.  Writing groups offer moral support from like-minded individuals. The critiques from fellow writers  is invaluable in your growth as a writer. The same goes for classes. There is always something to learn, I take at least one class every year. It keeps me motivated and pushing my knowledge of the craft. Look to your local University, or through the many online resources available today. I find writing groups not only offer that invaluable feedback they offer motivation and accountability.